Welcome to Mooseport is a dull comedy revolving around Ray Romano's Everyone Loves Raymond shtick. He plays Handy Harrison, the local Handyman, in a small town where everyone knows everyone and what they had for lunch. Handy is sweet on the local vet, played by Maura Tierney; she's ready to move on to the next level in their relationship, except Handy is too dopey to catch on.

        Gene Hackman plays Monroe Cole, a very recent ex-president also a very recent ex-husband. His wife--Chrsitine Baranksi as Cruela DeVille--gets most of the property and Cole is left with the Mooseport residence, or should I say mansion. Cole--like every movie ex-president--travels with quite an entourage. Beside his personal assistant--Marcia Gay Harden--there's his press secretary--Fred Savage--and the required number of secret service men.

        At a small welcoming ceremony for Cole, two things happen. He meets Sally and is immediately smitten, and the locals ask him to take on the role of Mayor. He graciously agrees, mainly because he smells a loophole to allow him to keep the house from his ex-wife's greedy clutches.

        The problem is Handy was also asked to run for Mayor--the town might be small but there's still room for lack of communication. Initially he doesn't want to run against an ex-president, but once he sees that Cole has eyes for his girl, it's a whole different ball game, except it's not. This movie goes nowhere, does nothing, and is pretty tedious.

        Ray Romano relies on the deadpan humor of his TV success. Maura Tierney seems remarkably like her long-suffering sad sack character from ER. Gene Hackman and Marcia Gay Harden, as the outsiders, struggle to fit in, but try as they might, they can't. After all, they can act, and it seems no one else can.

        If you've lived in a small town, you will likely feel a little sentimental for Welcome to Mooseport. The film tries to make you feel at home by including every stereotype in the book, from the naked jogger in the opening scene to the battle ax who works in the hardware store and insists Handy stand up for himself to the moose tied up out front. I felt affinity with that moose. I desperately wanted to escape.

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